River AI, an AI startup founded by xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin, has secured $1.1 billion in funding in a seed/Series A round led by General Catalyst and AMP PBC, with participation from Nvidia, AMD Ventures, Y Combinator, and Temasek. (AMP PBC is an AI-focused investment firm founded in 2026 by former Andreessen Horowitz general partner Anjney … Read more
Brad Lightcap, one of the longest-serving executives at OpenAI, is leaving the powerful AI lab to “start something new.” In an internal message that Lightcap shared online Tuesday, the outgoing executive told OpenAI staff that it was “bittersweet to share that I’ll be moving on from OpenAI to start something new.” Lightcap, who joined the … Read more
Forget the European summer lull: Startups can’t afford to stay still, and Brussels is following suit. In the middle of peak vacation time, the European Commission announced that the Scaleup Europe Fund was fully operational, with investments “expected in the coming weeks.” But its first deal was actually made public the very next day. ICEYE, … Read more
Accel has closed a new $550 million India fund, less than two years after raising its previous India-focused vehicle, as part of a coordinated $3.5 billion global fundraising effort. The new India fund was oversubscribed and closed within weeks, people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Accel still has more than 55% of its previous … Read more
Phia, the shopping startup co-founded by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, is once again under fire for its alleged business practices. The latest issue stems from earlier this year when Bloomberg published an investigation that mapped out how Phia was taking credit and commission for affiliate purchases it did not help to generate, known as … Read more
ChatGPT is on desktops across the world, but there’s been one place where it’s been lacking: the Linux community. Certain sectors of the open source developer community have been clamoring for OpenAI to bring its chatbot to their neck of the woods. As of this week, OpenAI has rectified this oversight, launching a dedicated ChatGPT … Read more
Uber has sold off its entire stake in Serve Robotics, the autonomous delivery robot company that spun out of the ride-hailing company more than five years ago. Uber made the disclosure in a regulatory filing that was first reported by Bloomberg. Uber’s exit from Serve Robotics has been brewing for at least a year, according … Read more
The FBI is warning that cybercriminals are hacking into the social media accounts of adults and children to steal their intimate explicit images and videos. The perpetrators rely largely on social engineering tactics to target people, the alert said, and victims are often extorted, or their stolen content published online. “Victims often face re-victimization through … Read more
One is a 2000 X5 E53 with an M5 E60 V10 engine and a six-speed manual transmission. The other is a 2027 X5 with an exclusive Frozen Titanium Silver exterior paint. Both SUVs debut during this year’s Monterey Car Week. BMW and Kith are back at it again with another collaboration—and this … Read more
In a significant milestone for Google, CEO Sundar Pichai announced via X that the Gemini app has become one of the company’s fastest-growing products, recently surpassing 1 billion monthly active users. Pichai also noted it was the 14th Google product to hit the 1 billion mark. With this rapid growth, Gemini is keeping pace with … Read more